Television Review: Scooby Doo!: Mystery Incorporated
Crystal Cove advertises itself as “the most hauntedest town on Earth” and it’s easy to see why. Its history is full of curses, ghosts, monsters and mysterious disappearances, starting with the Spanish conquistadors who founded the place. But if you dig a little deeper, you discover that many of those mysterious happenings were fakes. In particular, every single ghost or monster that’s appeared in the last few years has been unmasked as a hoax by four teenagers and their talking dog!
Since Crystal Cove’s economy is entirely based on tourism due to its spooky reputation, the town sees “Mystery Incorporated” as a menace, rather than a blessing. Who wants to come see a bunch of fakery? But our heroes persist. They love solving mysteries with their friends. But then the gang discovers they’re not the first team that solved mysteries in Crystal Cove…and maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the supposed curse than an old man in a mask!
The Scooby-Doo franchise started with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? on CBS in 1969. Like most Saturday morning cartoons of the era, the episodes were very formulaic. A ghost or monster is haunting an area and the locals are unable to deal with it. The gang shows up in their Mystery Machine van and investigates. Various shenanigans ensue, especially revolving around lovable cowards Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. At the end of the episode, the meddling kids manage to capture the creature, and unmask it to reveal a character they’d met earlier who has no actual supernatural powers. (The majority of motives involved some sort of real estate deal.)
The episodes were designed to be seen in any order (no video on demand back then, and no telling when you’d get to see a rerun) so didn’t have much continuity or character development. But it was a strong formula with likable characters, and got excellent ratings. Not only was it renewed, but it also inspired several copycat shows about teens solving mysteries with an oddball sidekick. The show was revised multiple times over the years, adding and subtracting characters, and having continuities where ghosts were real as well as ones with only hoaxes.
In 2010, Cartoon Network started airing “Mystery Incorporated”, which included many elements of previous versions of the series, including the basic formula, but in a new continuity that actually had a overall plotline.
Fred Jones is the leader, a trap-obsessed young man who is the son of Crystal Cove’s venal mayor. Daphne Blake is a debutante whose very wealthy parents compare her unfavorably with her overachieving sisters. Velma Dinkley is the book-smart daughter of the owners of the town’s spooky museum (who are not thrilled when she tells the truth about most of the exhibits) and is sensitive about being less conventionally attractive than Daphne. Norville “Shaggy” Rogers is fond of food and his best friend Scoob, but not nearly as fond of spooky stuff, and a huge disappointment to his parents. And then there’s Scoobert “Scooby” Dooby Doo, a Great Dane who has none of the qualities of a show dog, but can talk…mostly, and is braver than he thinks.
At the beginning of the series, at least some of the classic episodes of the previous version have happened in some fashion, as they’re referenced, but this has not endeared them to the citizens of Crystal Cove, California. Especially not the town’s inept lawman, Sheriff Bronson Stone. He’s not at all thrilled that they have a better crime-solving rate than he does, in addition to ruining the town’s revenue streams.
Despite repeated requests and warnings, the teens investigate a slime mutant in the caves below the city, and in the process, find a pendant that once belonged to the previous version of Mystery Incorporated, who all vanished years ago. A person referring to himself as “Mr. E” contacts the teens, offering clues and hints to the greater mystery behind all the fake monsters–but can he be trusted? Can any adult be trusted?
This series is much more open about the characters’ emotional life. Fred and Daphne are openly attracted to each other, although they are dolts about actually making their relationship work, especially Fred. At the beginning, Velma is secretly dating Shaggy, but it’s clear they aren’t suited for each other romantically, and Shaggy’s way more invested in his lifetime friendship with Scooby than any chance at romance with a girl. Repeated misfires in trying to move forward with relationships contributes to friction within the group, and this combined with several shocking reveals breaks the team up (temporarily) at the halfway point of the series.
Later on, it’s fairly clear that Velma and new character Hot Dog Water have a thing going on, but in 2010 American cartoons same-sex attraction could only ever be broadly hinted at.
Good stuff: Even the episodes that stick pretty close to the original format switch things up enough to keep the show lively. There are appearances by other Hanna-Barbera characters, and shout-outs to things like War of the Gargantuas and Twin Peaks. The myth arc is intriguing, and the ending appropriately apocalyptic. The anachronistic 70s aesthetic is a good look.
Less good: The running character tics often grate after the third or fourth appearance. In order to keep the subplots going, characters had to repeatedly regress to status quo (there’s a plot justification, but yow.) I could have done with a bit less of people being mean to Velma because of her appearance.
It’s just as well there wasn’t a direct sequel with a regular role for Harlan Ellison as the ending suggests. His personality and voice as shown here were best in very small doses.
Weird: People in monster costumes are way, way more strong and agile than in their civilian lives even when there’s not a reason given for this. It instantly goes away when they’re unmasked.
Content note: People (and animals) actually die in this version. Most of the deaths are offscreen and only kind of confirmed by the character never coming back. A certain amount of sexism is scattered in, and Shaggy in a dress is supposed to be funny.
Overall: One of the best installments of the franchise, showing how flexible the formula can be.
